


Snitch: Moments

by CharlieNozaki



Series: Snitch [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Companion Piece, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Flashbacks, Gen, Growing Up, Loss of Parent(s), Love, M/M, Martial Arts, Memories, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Relationship(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-29 20:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieNozaki/pseuds/CharlieNozaki
Summary: Companion to "Snitch." (HIGHLY recommended to read that first. Includes artwork).Key moments for a father and his daughter - from Zoro and Kuina’s past, to his and Sanji’s future.





	1. Father

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to my fic, "Snitch." This will be much more meaningful to those who have read that first. However, I will write this to be as accessible and spoiler-free as I can make it for those who haven't read the main fic.

**_Eighteen years ago…_ **

* * *

It had been seven weeks since a series of _small_ mistakes had led to the _biggest_ of Zoro’s young life.

But then again, it wasn’t his mistake alone. Kuina was also involved, and the pair of them were absolutely foolish for it.

Yes, they’d both been drinking underage, albeit in the safety of the dojo courtyard, alone at night, beneath the stars, sitting on the soft moss with a bottle of sake and a stupid challenge between them. It didn’t matter how safe their environment was. Zoro was still only nineteen, and Kuina was twenty.

That was the first mistake.

The second mistake, as far as Zoro was concerned, was not his own. It was nature’s, for making Kuina look as damn beautiful as she had that night. Even sober he knew she was, but the light of the moon on her smooth skin....she was practically glowing, drawing him in with a confident smirk on her face, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol.

Ironically, this whole thing had started as a stupid jokey argument over who would get to name their first kid down the line. Zoro wasn’t even sure he wanted kids, but it was the principle of the thing, and the fact that he _knew_ drinking was something he could beat Kuina at that had him chugging back far more sake than he ever should have.

And there was Kuina, looking far more _stunning_ than she ever should have, and he’d kissed her out there as soon as she reluctantly tapped out. He’d reached over, grabbed her face, and kissed her hard, with more passion than he’d ever shown her.

Sure, three years of rather innocent experimenting with her had boosted his confidence some, but that night, he felt invincible, and she certainly wasn’t doing anything to stop him.

In fact, she was the first to remove her shirt, practically tear his from his back, and she pulled him atop her when she lay back on the ground, huffed breaths leaving swollen lips when his hands came around her bare torso.

They’d never made it past this point, and both of them had been perfectly content with that, neither particularly sexual in nature.

But strong alcohol did funny things, even to the most tolerant of drinkers, and they’d only been thinking of each other, how right this felt and had felt for years. How perfectly their bodies seemed to fit together when Kuina pulled off her sports bra and Zoro brought his chest to hers, calloused hands worshipping as delicately as could be over the sensitive skin of her breasts as if they’d done this a thousand times.

Maybe he’d never worshipped her like _this_ before, but there had always been worship. For nine years, since he’d first vowed to defeat her some day, and so, it really wasn’t surprising that the third, most significant mistake occurred that night. That both of them, inexperience and uncertainty absent from their minds, would make love right there in the garden, with no accompaniment other than the faint chirping of crickets, the trickling of water, and the occasional clunk of the bamboo rocker against the stone of the sozu fountain.

They connected quietly, but no less powerfully. He _loved_ her, regretted nothing but the massive hangover he suffered the next morning, and yet, it was a mistake.

Because one time, their first time and only time since, had been enough.

The reality was that Kuina was seven weeks pregnant, and their very real dilemma was what the hell they were going to do about it.

The stress had been wearing on them, ever since Kuina had told him a month ago, and they knew a decision needed to be made.

It was up to Kuina, as far as Zoro was concerned. It was her body, and he was willing to support whichever decision she chose, but it was terrifying. He’d never seen her this indecisive for the whole time he’d known her, and her window for making a decision was rapidly drawing to a close, at least as far as carrying to term went.

He’d tried not to push her, tried not to get on her case about it, when he already knew her father, Koshiro, was, with his usual quiet insistence, but with insistence no less.

He hadn’t been nearly as disappointed in either of them as they’d both assumed, and neither had Zoro’s uncle, Mihawk. At least there was that. If anything, the two men had hardly shown any surprise at all, and that was almost stranger.

Still, it was one day at the dojo when Zoro knew Kuina was particularly stressed, having seen it in her face and her stance, even as she helped the young kids there for lessons with their katas. Her brow was drawn in tight for the full hour, in contrast to how relaxed she was with them normally, and Zoro saw it when she looked at him after the last lesson of the day, after her dad moved into the office to take care of the day’s paperwork, leaving the two of them to clean up as usual.

He saw that she’d made a decision even before she said so out loud. 

She treaded up to him, crossing the training mats in the empty room, and stood before him with steeled determination.

Zoro didn’t know what she was going to tell him, but he still managed to feel reassured. There was no way she hadn’t thought long and hard about this, and he knew to trust her decision.

“Zoro,” she said seriously, and while he didn’t move to touch her, she stepped closer to him, brought hands to his jaw, her expression looking stuck between wanting to kick his ass or kiss him. “I’ve thought about it. And I am so stupidly in love with you that it’s made me dumb enough to actually want to keep your kid.”

That didn’t stop the surprise from creeping into his expression though, his heart stuttering in his chest, and the breath shuddering out of him despite the strong conviction Kuina still held.

“Yeah,” she affirmed, and removed a hand from his face so she could punch him lightly in the sternum. “I’m still not convinced either of us will make good parents. I’ll be the first to admit that. And I know the timing is fucking awful right now…. But I also know that any kid of ours is gonna be stronger than us. Stronger than both of us, and no matter how much we suck, I think it would be a fucking shame not to give that kid a chance.”

Zoro stared at her, wide-eyed, almost as shocked as when she’d first told him she was pregnant.

Of course, he’d entertained every single outcome of this in his head by now, but hearing it out loud was something else. Hearing it voiced as truth of what Kuina wanted was….fuck.

“You’re---You’re sure?” he stuttered, wanting her to be absolutely positive, despite knowing she wouldn’t tell him such things if she wasn’t. “I-I mean. You really wanna---keep it? Not even like---adoption or---”

“And what would you do if we gave our kid up for adoption, and that kid grew up to become some boring, mainstream sheep who lived a sheltered picket-fence life and never even touched a sword,” she shot back immediately, quirking a brow at him in challenge.

He only had to blink at her for a second before he cringed, pulling a face.

“....Fuck,” he muttered. “I’d hate it.”

“Exactly,” Kuina replied, and she brought both hands up to play with his hair, not to persuade him, but rather, to give both of them a bit of comfort.

She leaned in to press her forehead to his a second later.

“If you don’t want this, tell me now,” she murmured. “So I can stop imagining our kid kicking your ass with Wado.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he grumbled, instantly closing the distance between their lips to press a hard kiss there that was meant to be punishment, but ultimately turned rather sweet when his hands migrated gently to her hips, eventually sliding around to caress her still-flat stomach with great care.

“I want it. I’m scared and I dunno how we’re gonna do it, but I want it,” he breathed, pulling back from her lips ever so slightly. Slowly, he grinned. He wasn’t willing to give up, after all. “And this also means I get to put my kid names to good use. Been thinkin’ about ‘em ever since I beat your ass at that drinking contest.”

Kuina groaned loudly, very nearly falling under his spell for a moment there, but now forced to whack him in the shoulder.

“Oh, this I gotta hear,” she muttered, as a look of total pride creeped onto his face.

“Kay, so, for a boy, Tachi. Y’know, like the swords they used in Japan before the 1500s. I think it’s---”

“Zoro!” Kuina shrieked, appalled. “We are not naming our child after a fucking sword!”

“What!” he shot back. _“I_ like swords. _You_ like swords. We’ll _have_ to like our kid. Why the hell not?”

“Who says we won’t like our kid! Besides, it’s a _kid,_ not a pet!”

“So? I think it sounds good!”

She groaned again, bringing her hand to her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut.

“Do I even wanna know what you thought of for a girl…?” she hissed under her breath.

“Tana! Like _ka_ tana, and that sounds even more normal, so you should be happy with that one!”

“Alright,” Kuina huffed, extracting Zoro’s hands from her stomach and the precious yet-unnamed cargo underneath, moving towards the door. “Seven and a half months is a long time to think of something better.”

“I’d love to see you try,” Zoro grumbled, following after her and flipping off lights as they exited the room. “Except, oh wait, you can’t, because I _beat you!”_

They argued all the way down the hall.

* * *

As it turned out, seven and a half months wasn’t nearly long _enough_ to prepare for the inevitable, and the name debacle had gone largely abandoned during the mad scramble to accomplish everything else.

Supplies had to be bought, living arrangements changed, the two of them finding a tiny, cheap apartment together so they wouldn’t have to burden their respective guardians, despite how terrified they were to do this on their own. Zoro would still work at the dojo to bring in money, and Kuina would go back as soon as she could too. Hell, if at all possible, they’d be bringing the kid with them immediately after it was born.

Aside from that though, they rather foolishly did nothing else. No parenting books were consulted, neither of them wanting to seek much advice until the kid was actually born. And neither of them had mothers, so there was no one to _raise_ many concerns within them or take them through the actual birthing _process._

They hadn’t even wanted to know the sex of the baby, knowing it wasn’t going to matter in the end, so long as it was healthy.

Zoro’s uncle never had kids of his own. Fuck if he knew anything. And Koshiro helped when asked, but was, ultimately, as hands-off as ever.

They’d assumed they could wing it. They were tough. _Kuina_ was tough. She could do anything as far as Zoro knew, and maybe they were still scared, but together, they could fucking do this.

How hard could it be?

But Zoro had never been so terrified in his fucking life as he was when he found himself in the fucking delivery room, next to Kuina, who wasn’t _screaming_ bloody murder like he’d heard from some of the other rooms when they’d arrived, but her face stayed contorted in pain throughout the whole labor in a way Zoro had _never_ seen from her before.

She held it together, as strong as ever, insisting on no painkillers, but he could fucking tell from how tightly she held his hand, from the sweat plastering her bangs to her head, and the tears that forced their way down her cheeks that this was easily the most difficult challenge she’d ever had to face.

It took a few hours, in the middle of the night. He’d felt awkward as hell being there, not having a damn clue what to do and feeling like he was in the way the whole time, particularly when a nurse asked if he could step aside so she could check a machine. But Kuina had practically growled at the woman, insisted that Zoro stay right where he was, and he’d known he shouldn’t be anywhere else.

And though it was all a blur for him (he couldn’t even imagine how it was for Kuina), somehow, at the end of it all, Kuina lay there on the hospital bed, thoroughly drained, with a baby _girl_ nestled on her chest, and a look of tearful disbelief on her face as she caressed her daughter’s tiny form gently.

Koshiro continued to stand quietly across the room by the window, having watched the ordeal in near silence the whole time, but the smile that pulled at his lips was enough to express his pride.

Zoro couldn’t move, still next to the bed, but completely numb, eyes fixed on the baby, who wasn’t crying or screaming as he thought babies did, but instead made only quiet little noises, squirmed ever so slightly when a nurse draped a white blanket over her pink skin.

Her face was turned away from him, but she had a full head of hair, dark blue-black, like Kuina’s, as he’d hoped for, but there was a different sheen to it, a light green that, now that her hair had dried some, was obvious in the harsh light of the hospital room.

This was real. _She_ was real. _Their daughter_ was real.

And when Kuina finally looked up at him, her eyes meeting his with exhausted wonder, he felt his breath catch, particularly when she reached a hand up, loose hospital band sliding down her wrist, and grabbed his shirt sleeve, tugging him closer.

“Hold her, Zoro,” she murmured, a nurse stepping in to help lift the baby, wrapping the blanket a little more securely around her, before holding her out expectantly towards the swordsman.

He didn’t move, even as Kuina pushed herself up more against the pillows with a bit of difficulty and fixed him with a _look._

“Come on. I didn’t do all this work for nothing,” she said, and Zoro had to let out a sound which was half a nervous laugh and half a huff that came with all the pent-up nerves that bundled within him as he stared at that life that he was now responsible for.

This was truly a responsibility unlike any he’d ever had, and if he thought he’d been worried about it before? Well, that was nothing compared to now, faced with the real, living, breathing deal that he had _no_ idea what to do with.

His arms trembled as he held them out, no matter how hard he tried to stop it. His heart pounded and he shook like a fucking leaf, even though he knew he had no business reacting this way when Kuina was the one who’d just gone through a damn ordeal of hell.

But it was all to bring their daughter here, and when her weight finally settled in his grasp, unexpectedly, everything stilled.

His breathing slowed, and he found himself mesmerized by the tiny (tinier than he’d thought) form of his daughter, who seemed to settle perfectly in the crook of his arm. He looked at her closed eyes, her hands, which barely seemed big enough to wrap around one of his fingers, that batted unconsciously at her nose.

 _“Holy shit,”_ he breathed, almost unaware of it, but in that moment, even Kuina had faded to the background, and it was only him and the baby he now held in his arms.

Slowly, her eyes flickered sleepily, and he couldn’t help the quick intake of breath he took when she fully opened them, revealing a deep brown, just like his, that stared up at him almost quizzically, trying to make sense of the blurry, amoeba-like form above her, that she had yet to discern as her father.

Unsure of what to do, he stood there for a long moment, the two locked in a silent stare-off until, eventually, she moved, one of her hands lifting up a bit in a stretch.

He still didn’t know if this was a proper reaction or not, but his instincts told him to shift her into one arm, raise the other to slowly approach her with one of his fingers.

He did it carefully, not wanting to scare her. What if she spooked and squirmed her way out of his grasp like a cat or something? If he dropped his daughter in the first few minutes of her life, he’d never live it down. But he’d never held a baby---fuck if he knew what to do.

Zoro waited, finger outstretched, saw her eyes lock onto the digit.

Then, her small hand reached out, grabbing at the air briefly with a lack of coordination before finally landing on his finger, her own curling around his large one delicately.

And the great, prideful Zoro Roronoa felt his heart actually melt in his chest, a warmth filling him as he gazed down at the sweet grasp his daughter had on his---

Until, nails. _Sharp_ nails. Digging into his skin with surprising force, and he actually screeched.

 _“Ow!_ What the hell!”

Maybe comparing his daughter to a cat hadn’t been far off, after all.

He didn’t drop her, but he certainly tried to pry his finger from her vicegrip, though she seemed quite content to latch onto it with those damn _claws_ of hers. A content little smile tugged at her lips, and then her eyes fluttered shut again, effectively trapping him there amidst Kuina’s laughter, which he quickly became conscious of.

When the swordsman turned to glare at her, she was merely looking up at him with a tired, but joyful smile. Her head was flopped back against a pillow, hair disheveled and falling out of the short ponytail she’d pulled it up in hours ago.

But, in that moment, Zoro thought she’d never looked so beautiful, and his scowl morphed its way into a smirk.

His daughter’s grip on his finger did loosen after a minute as she fell into deeper sleep, and he gently removed it from her hand so he could delicately caress his palm over her tiny head.

“What’s her name?” he heard the doctor ask, the woman having finished cleaning up tools, smiling over at the young couple from across the room with encouragement.

Zoro felt his heart flutter with stupid excitement, and he turned his head to look, with hope, at Kuina….who gave a _heavy_ sigh and brought a hand up to cover her eyes.

“I’m too tired to argue this,” she muttered, and waved a hand in a gesture that looked dismissive, but Zoro _really_ knew to be _surrender._

A gleeful grin spread across his lips as he turned back to the doctor.

“Tana,” he said proudly. “Her name’s Tana.”


	2. Marriage

_**Twelve years ago…** _

* * *

* * *

A slow, deep breath, and he let it out with equally careful measure, counting backwards from five out loud to benefit his little pupil sitting cross-legged beside him on the mats. His pupil who was having a lot of trouble sitting still that day, most likely thanks to the rain, and the lack of outdoor recess time at school earlier, a near tragedy, he learned, for a first grader with too much energy.

Zoro got it. He was a full twenty-five years old himself, and _he_ still felt a little stir-crazy if he missed a day of training.

But to him, the rain was soothing, especially when they sat with the shoji doors open, facing the courtyard as water pattered over the azaleas and down through the branches of the cherry trees.

Another meditative breath, more counting, only this time, he heard her let out the breath too quickly and shift about restlessly.

Zoro cracked an eye open, trying to keep himself in serious sensei mode despite the urge to crack a smile, though it wasn’t easy when he glanced over subtly to see Tana waving her head side to side for no apparent reason other than being six years old and silly.

He cleared his throat pointedly, and nearly lost it at how quickly she straightened and got back into proper meditation position, sucking in a deep breath like she hadn’t just been distracted.

Her self-discipline could be rather commendable when she wanted it to be, and he went right ahead and credited her superior genetics for that.

A few more quiet minutes, but he could sense, more and more, that he was losing her, her attention wavering yet again, and he eventually decided to call it quits. She did much better with the more active parts of their training. He knew meditation wasn’t something most people caught on to easily. Even he remembered being too bored and impatient for it in his youth.

He chose the one moment, however, when Tana _had_ closed her eyes and tried to quiet herself, if briefly. He chose that one moment to lean a palm back on the mats, look at her with a proud smirk on his face….then reach out and grab her sides until she squealed and tumbled backwards into his arms, a giggling mess.

“Are we done?” she asked him when her laughter died down, sliding down his front until she was lying on her back on the floor, staring up at him upside down.

He rolled his eyes at the hope practically shining on her features and adopted his best fake-offended scowl.

_“Yes,”_ he sulked. “But you weren’t even trying today. Yer gonna make me sad.”

She giggled again and reached up to poke him mischievously beneath his chin.

“You gonna cry again like when Mom hit you in the face yesterday?” Tana asked, breaking into a broader grin when, this time, he really did sulk.

“What? I didn’t _cry!”_ he huffed. “What’re you talkin’ about, crazy woman?”

“Yes, you did!” his daughter insisted, flipping around to her stomach briefly before eventually crawling up to kneel before him. “She hit you in the face with her bokken and you _cried!”_

“I did not!” he screeched, Tana’s smug expression yet again mirroring her mother’s perfectly, infuriatingly so. “Look, if _anything,_ my eyes watered because she hit me on the damn nose! Your eyes do that if you get hit on the nose hard!”

“Really?” Tana asked, tilting her head curiously, and he nodded sagely. Maybe he could turn this into an educational moment. Whoever said he couldn’t be a good father?

“Yeah really,” he replied, crossing arms over his chest as he prepared himself to teach his young child the ways of the world, watching as she sat up eagerly to hear what he had to say.

“Lots of injuries can cause reactions in other parts of your body an’ stuff,” he said.

She leaned in intently, no doubt fascinated with all the smart shit he knew when it came to that kind of thing, and he’d just opened his mouth to spout off something else.

And that was when she reached out and chopped him on the nose with a hand, instantly falling into a fit of laughter when he doubled over with a squawk and clutched at his face.

This was how Kuina found them when she appeared in the doorway of the training room and strode over, a grin on her face as she quirked a brow down at Zoro, who glared up at her.

“What happened?” she asked, amused, when she received no explanation other than that angry look upon Zoro’s face.

“I made Daddy cry again like you did!” Tana answered, giggling anew until Zoro grumbled, “Oh, that is _it!”_

He reached out to grab her, easily standing and hefting her under an arm before swinging her precariously towards the open doors and the rain that continued to fall just feet away.

“You wanna get drenched?” he warned, stepping closer, her head dangerously nearing the splash zone, and he thought he’d won.

Until she crowed, “Go ahead! I don’t care!” and his jaw dropped.

He turned around to gape at Kuina in disbelief, fun effectively spoiled as he pointed at the damn cheeky kid under his arm as if his girlfriend should be just as appalled at her daughter’s actions.

Tana’s enjoyment was also spoiled, however, when it seemed Zoro wasn’t going to do _anything,_ much less throw her outside, so she gave a little growl and flailed a bit.

“Mom, make this guy put me down!” she insisted, but no coaxing from her mother was needed as Zoro lifted her and tossed her gently back onto the mats, making sure she landed on her feet.

Kuina chuckled and bent over to ruffle her daughter’s hair, kissing her forehead.

“That _guy_ is your father,” she said. “And yes, he is a crybaby~”

Zoro’s shriek of protest was expected, and Kuina had a huge grin on her face as she nudged Tana towards the door.

“Run and tell your grandpa we’re gonna clean up and get going,” Kuina urged. “He’s in the office.”

“Kay!” Tana replied, and scurried off fast enough to make it seem like the world was ending.

As soon as she rounded the corner and flew out of sight, Kuina turned around, grabbed Zoro by the shirt collar and pulled him in close.

“One last spar,” she insisted, gaze dropping to his lips briefly before she backed off, teasingly sliding her way back to the weapons closet.

For some reason, Zoro couldn’t help but think she had an agenda with that little play, but considering how fucking hot she looked with that challenging tilt of lips and half-lidded gaze, he didn’t much care.

* * *

It had ended as it did roughly seventy-five percent of the time these days, with his own shinai crossed over his throat and a triumphant grin on Kuina’s face.

Unfortunately, she had a winning streak going for her that hadn’t been broken in a good month, so the cockiness was certainly there when she lowered herself down to straddle his hips possessively.

She had let the shinai drop to the side, bringing hands up to drag back through his hair before she dove in to kiss him, almost asserting her dominance, it felt like, but that was just fine with him. It wasn’t much of a secret anymore, at least not between them, that Zoro Roronoa quite enjoyed being controlled. At least by her.

He’d lifted hands to her hips, rose a knee and pulled her closer, slipping fingers beneath the slick fabric of her workout top to press against her skin.

Fuck, he loved her, and it had only gotten stronger with the addition of their daughter. They were fumbling their way through, but it was more worth it than they ever could have imagined, and the love they had for Tana had solidified the fact that he most certainly wanted to spend the rest of his life with this woman.

Never, for many years, had he pictured that kind of settled-down life for himself. But his life still _had_ the spark he needed.

No, their version of “settled-down” didn’t include a house with a yard and two golden retrievers, and no, they weren’t sending their kid to soccer practice and coaching from the sidelines, making brownies for PTA bake sales.

Their life was better than that.

They were teaching their kid the way of fucking _swordsmanship,_ something they both shared a soulful passion for, and their daughter sure as hell seemed to share it too. Because they weren’t forcing her to do this. Most of the time, she’d be the one running in first, grabbing a tiny shinai and challenging _them_ to a duel of her own accord.

His life had ended up right where it should be. He had everything. Everything just short of---

_“Marry me, Zoro,”_ Kuina breathed over his lips, and it was enough to make the swordsman stop breathing for a second.

How the fuck? How the fuck did she _always_ manage to do that? Catch him entirely off-guard with practically everything she did? Even after years together.

Her smile was so bright, her fingers playing with his earrings gently, and her hips grinding into his teasingly.

_“You lost again, so marry me,”_ she repeated, sending his head reeling anew.

“Wh---wait--- _what?”_ he stammered. “How does that even connect?”

“I dunno,” she shrugged with growing impatience. “But let’s go. Call Robin and Franky to watch. We’ll go to the courthouse.”

“Hold on, you mean _today?!”_ He pushed up to his elbows to gape at her in shock.

“Yeah. Why not?” Kuina asked, as if it should have been a no-brainer. Then, because he still wasn’t catching up, she rolled her eyes. “Come on. Neither of us are going anywhere, right?”

Zoro shook his head slowly.

“And we love each other, right?”

He nodded just as slowly.

“Good,” she said, and reached out to pat his cheek, finally climbing off him and getting to her feet. “Though this is all on the condition that I keep my maiden name.”

“Hey! Why!” he yelped with indignance, seeming to break from his dumbstruck stupor as he scrambled to his feet as well.

“Because! I let our daughter have your name. That should be enough for you,” she explained, gathering the dropped shinai and taking them back to the closet. “Besides, ‘Wakahisa’ means ‘forever young’ so I can keep kicking your ass for all eternity.”

“Right, uh huh. Well, that’s _dumb,”_ Zoro responded quite eloquently, crossing arms over his chest as he waited for her.

Kuina rolled her eyes again, closing the storage closet doors and moving over to close the shoji ones as well.

_“Right, uh huh,”_ she mocked. “Well, what does ‘Roronoa’ mean?”

“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Think it’s French.”

“Bull _shit_ it’s French,” Kuina shot back, stopping to give him a shove in the shoulder as she reached his side again. She fisted a hand in his T-shirt and gave him a tug towards the door. “Now come on. You ready?”

He took that moment to look at her, meet her gaze head-on, almost as he would any other challenge from her. But this was different and he knew it.

This was for _life._

“Hell yeah m’ready,” he replied, a grin making its way onto his face.

* * *

Apparently, he hadn’t been as ready as he’d thought, at least not in Robin’s cultured opinion, because she’d stood there fixing his hair for ten minutes while the judge readied the papers, Franky already bawling his eyes out in a corner while Tana got herself into a heated battle of rock-paper-scissors with Franky and Robin’s kids, seven-year-old Oliver and five-year-old Thomas.

Eventually, the prenuptial moments had lapsed into Robin and Kuina debating whether or not they had time to run to the dollar store in order to make a construction paper tuxedo for Zoro, since he was such a damn _mess_ according to everyone. The children supported this wholeheartedly.

Zoro took the time to remind the bunch that Kuina looked just as bedraggled as him, only to realize the implications of his words a second too late.

When the judge re-entered the room, finally ready to perform the ceremony, Kuina had Zoro in a headlock, while Robin explained to a curious Thomas the lowbrow humor of her doing so at a _wedlock_ ceremony.

It went about as ridiculously as a wedding between two such unprepared people could go, and by the time it was over, nothing had changed but their status on a piece of paper, and the fact that Franky and Robin offered to take Tana for the night to give her parents a “honeymoon” of sorts.

But to them, that meant Chinese take-out at home because neither of them were amazing chefs, and they were, frankly, too lazy to put together some huge romantic thing. They weren’t even going to look for rings until that weekend, _maybe,_ if they remembered.

It was perfect though, better than any wedding Zoro could have imagined. Because it was with Kuina, and this was the wonderful, low-key way their life together was going to play out.

They understood each other, and when they’d both passed out on the couch that night with the TV flickering in the dark living room, without so much as consummating the marriage? Well, neither of them woke up disappointed, because Zoro didn’t need that.

He just needed her. That was all.

He would only ever need her.


	3. Parting

**_Seven years ago…_ **

* * *

It was just a normal unsuspecting day. But why shouldn’t it have been? There was no reason why they shouldn’t have gone about their lives like normal.

A school day, and the three of them were up at an ungodly hour, Zoro and Kuina not even pretending to be chipper anymore in the mornings in order to get their daughter excited for school. The disdain was inevitable. She would just have to endure it and accept that it sucked, and at the age of eleven, boy, had she ever.

Tana didn’t necessarily have an attitude in the morning. She was mostly just unresponsive, replying in grunts and looking ready to fall asleep into her cereal, much like her father actually. When she slept, she slept _hard._

She’d reached the age, though, where she’d begun asking for coffee, and despite Zoro’s nonchalant attitude towards the whole thing, Kuina had insisted against it.

“Monster energy drink?” Tana had tried instead, only to receive an even more firm, _“No.”_

So undead mode it was, and Zoro had to laugh when she let loose a loud, unsightly yawn at the table that morning.

Kuina, sitting across from her with some yogurt, quirked a brow, looking entirely unimpressed, but Zoro merely grinned, reaching out to brush some hair back from his daughter’s eyes, then kissed the side of her head.

“You better wake up,” he murmured. “Or that asshole kid’s gonna beat you at the shuttle run in gym class.”

“I could beat him _in_ my sleep,” Tana groaned out in reply, flopping her head down onto the table and fake snoring.

Zoro chuckled, letting a hand rub over her back soothingly before going back to his own cereal.

They’d finished their breakfast in relative silence, but that was just fine for the three of them because they didn’t always need words.

What mattered was the way Zoro stopped his daughter after she cleared her bowl, kissed her forehead and smushed her cheeks together until she cracked a smile before sending her off to brush her teeth.

What mattered was the look of exasperated adoration Kuina shot him, and the fact that Tana walked in on them kissing against the kitchen counter when she came back in the room.

Robin had offered to take her to school that day, seeing as she had a meeting closeby, and she was also taking Tana after school because Zoro and Kuina had to help entertain some guests from the National Kendo Federation visiting the dojo later that afternoon.

Robin and Franky did so much for them, and Zoro was honestly grateful to have them.

Eventually, there was nothing else to do but wait for Robin to pick up Tana.

Kuina had perched on the armrest of the couch, their daughter coming up to her with a sleepy groan, fully dressed and ready, backpack on her shoulders. But she’d come up and slumped her head onto Kuina’s shoulder as if going to school was the most difficult thing she was having to do.

She stayed there as Kuina stroked through her hair, and Zoro smiled. As big as their daughter was getting, she hadn’t lost all her childish ways yet, and for that, he was glad.

He crossed the room to his two girls, slid an arm around Kuina’s waist and kissed her lips, close enough to Tana that she miraculously snapped awake with a yelp that she didn’t want that kind of mushy romantic stuff near her.

He smirked, plopped a hand down on her head and asked her to tell him about the rocket Franky was going to build with the kids in their backyard after school, something that flipped her mood around instantly and got her animatedly explaining how they were going to shoot it into grumpy Mr. Boodle’s lawn and see how big of a crater they could make.

Before long, the door had buzzed, and Kuina let Robin up, Oliver and Thomas in tow, the two boys jumping right into the excited rocket explanation with far too much physics knowledge for a pair of kids their age.

Kuina had kissed her daughter’s forehead with an “I love you,” nuzzled her nose briefly before passing her off to Zoro, who squeezed her tightly, lifted her off the ground a few inches until she squirmed in his grasp.

Then, a kiss to her cheek, an “I love you” of his own, and Tana headed out the door with Robin and her boys.

And just like that, it was over, though none of them knew in that moment.

That was the last time the three of them would ever be together.

* * *

Tana had been clued in that something was wrong when she ran downstairs at Oliver’s house that evening to get a drink. Her parents were supposed to come pick her up soon, but her friend’s house was practically hers by that point, so she had no trouble helping herself to whatever she wanted.

She and Oliver had been flopped in his room, playing 3DS. Nothing was wrong there, save for the fact that they were avoiding homework.

They didn’t get to see each other as much, now that he’d started middle school, Tana still stuck at elementary, though she _felt_ ready to graduate and head to sixth grade with her older friend. She’d always felt a bit more mature than the other kids her age….maybe that was because her dad had taught her swear words early on and “ruined her innocence” as her mom said.

But her parents were just that way. They kept her clued in to everything happening in the family. They didn’t sugarcoat, and they were honest with her. She respected them as her parents even though they both acted really stupid around each other, but it still felt good, like they were trusting her with things.

That was why she liked Oliver and Thomas’ parents too. They were the same way, and they both knew so much cool stuff about science and history.

Not to mention their house was incredible, modern and futuristic all at once, like a mini museum.

That didn’t stop her speeding a little too fast down the hardwood hallway in her socks, because it was fun to slide on the highly polished floors, on the way to the kitchen.

She tried to do a spin at the end, but stumbled a bit and nearly fell right into an ancient stone artifact in a glass case.

She missed it, thankfully, though she still slowed and tiptoed up to the kitchen door, just so Oliver’s parents wouldn’t know she’d been messing around in front of the expensive stuff.

This afforded her the chance, however, to hear hushed voices behind the door, and it was mysterious enough that she paused and leaned closer to try and listen.

_“Wh-Where did they take him?”_

_“I can’t be certain…..he’s in police custody…”_

_“Are you fucking---? They wouldn’t let him go with her---?!”_

_“No….Koshiro said that….”_

Ms. Nico’s voice grew quieter, and Tana lost the next bit of what she said, but she’d definitely heard her grandfather’s name, and the way Oliver’s dad’s voice sounded completely broken when he was always so cheerful sent a pang of concern through her.

The second she heard a stifled sob from Oliver’s mother, she was terrified.

 _“I’m not sure I can tell her…”_ was what Tana heard her say next, in such a small vulnerable voice, completely opposite to how Tana had always known her to be.

The sound of sniffling, and her husband’s soft attempts at comfort, though his barely suppressed sobs were evident.

What the hell was going on…?

They hadn’t needed to say anything though, because not long after, the doorbell rang, forcing Robin to exit the kitchen, wiping at her eyes and nearly running into Tana, who still stood in the hall, confused and scared to move.

The second her gaze fell upon the girl, however, her eyes welled once more and she quietly pressed a hand to Tana’s shoulder as she continued past.

Tana could do nothing but stare after her, watching as she moved slowly to the foyer, opened the door to reveal Koshiro standing outside, his face completely stoic and unreadable in the fading light of the evening.

He murmured something to Robin, and then the woman turned her head to look back at Tana, pain on her features. But, she forced the tiniest attempt at a smile, held her hand out for the girl, who, seeing how serious her grandpa looked, stepped forward fearfully.

She crossed the hall, took Robin’s hand and came up next to her, taking a deep breath and preparing herself for whatever he had to say.

He was ruthless in his honesty though. He held nothing back, merely stared her down and told her the truth.

“I’m afraid your mother is dead, Tana,” he said, no emotion even hinting to the fact that he spoke of his own daughter and not some stranger. “And your father has been arrested.”

She hadn’t even cried.

She hadn’t even cried until after the funeral, which had felt like a funeral for both her parents considering her dad was absent.

She’d held it in until the last of her things were moved out of their old apartment, until she sat in the guest room of her grandpa’s house, now _her_ room until further notice.

She’d waited until she was truly alone, with nothing but pictures to remind her of what, just a few days ago, had been her normal, happy life.

Her mother was gone, and everything else had fallen with her.

* * *

**_Six years ago…_ **

* * *

One year later, she stood in front of a different bedroom, in a different apartment, her belongings once again packed into a few suitcases.

Only, this time, her father stood beside her.

But it was him merely in body. Apart from that, he was a stranger.

There had been no cathartic reunion when her grandpa picked her up at Oliver’s after traveling to Impel to finally retrieve her father, just released that morning after that full year.

Only her grandpa had been at the front door, and led her out to the car alone.

In reality, her dad had stayed there, too weak and terrified to step out, to properly face his daughter after all this time.

But when he saw her, through the rearview mirror as they walked down the sidewalk to the car, his breath had caught, and his eyes had filled with tears for the first time since that night. The night he’d lost her.

His daughter was taller---she had to be fucking two inches taller, and he hadn’t been there to see her grow. Her hair was longer, and maybe it had only been a year, but _fuck,_ she looked so grown up. She looked so much like Kuina it physically _hurt_ and he had maybe fifteen seconds to pull himself together before they entered the car.

But it was impossible when all he could do was drop his head into his hands and take those fifteen seconds to lose himself to the silent, powerful sobs that ripped through his body, tore at his very soul.

He couldn’t do this. He shouldn’t be allowed to even be near her, as much as he loved and missed his daughter with everything he had.

By the time Koshiro came around to the driver’s side, lowered himself in as the hesitant sound of the back door opened too, Zoro had hastily thrown on a pair of sunglasses, wiped all trace of tears from at least his cheeks and clenched his jaw hard enough to cramp, if only so it didn’t tremble.

The car dipped with Tana’s small weight as she climbed in, and he noticed how she stayed at the window seat behind his for a long moment before tentatively sliding to the middle.

The air was silent. It seemed Koshiro wasn’t going to initiate anything between the two, but Tana had bravely faced her dad, unable to form words right away.

Her chin had wobbled, eyes welling up, just seeing him, almost back from the dead himself. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him the whole time he’d been in prison, after all. And a year in a child’s life might as well have been an eternity.

“...Dad?” she’d said, almost fearful to touch him because she knew if she did, she would break down.

He’d tensed at the sound of her voice.

She even _sounded_ older, more mature, and it took all of his strength just to keep his breathing steady, just to give that tiny nod in response, whisper (because his voice would surely tremble), _“Hey.”_

It was hardly a good response. It was hardly what he should have given her after so long, after leaving her, after _failing_ her and her mother.

But it was enough. It was enough for Tana to sense the change in him, to sense the wall that surrounded him, especially when he wouldn’t even look her in the eye.

It really was over. She’d lost her mother. And now she’d lost her father too.

That was why she didn’t want to be standing there with him, the one person who she’d wanted, _needed_ for an entire year, in an unfamiliar apartment that her grandpa had apparently helped set up for them.

She didn’t know this man, who’d barely said two words to her since returning. This wasn’t the same father who would hold her, reassure her. This wasn’t the same father who refused to let any harm come to her.

He wasn’t strong anymore.

The worst part was that Zoro knew this. But he’d fallen so far that he didn’t know how to pull himself back up again. At least not on his own.

Inside, his parental instincts were screaming to reach out and hold her. But he couldn’t make his body move through the fog of pain that wouldn’t let up, so he merely said, “This can be your room,” before hoisting his own duffle bag up on his shoulder and heading down the hall towards the master bedroom that he really _didn’t_ want to sleep in.

He didn’t want to sleep there alone. He didn’t want all that extra space, just to make himself remember that Kuina was gone. His time in Impel Down hadn’t been a dream. He’d returned to the same cruel reality he’d left.

“Did I do something wrong?”

His daughter’s voice called out after him, surprisingly strong and forceful, far stronger than he felt.

Of course she wanted answers. Of course she wanted to know the truth.

But if he told her, what would she think of him? Would she ever be able to look at him again? Would she still _love_ him?

“No,” he answered, not even turning around fully to look at her. _I did,_ he finished mentally.

Then he disappeared into the room on the end.

There was absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t have gone about their lives like normal.

But this new normal was one neither of them could come to terms with yet.

So things stayed shitty.

Until, that is, his daughter ran into a certain blond...


	4. Restart

**_Five and a half years ago…_ **

* * *

“Cook…… _Cook!”_

_“What?!”_

Zoro merely snickered, leaning back against the counter casually as he watched Sanji practically break his wrist with how vigorously he whisked the cookie batter, looking like he was itching for a cigarette with how damn tightly his jaw was clenched.

He wasn’t really being helpful that night. But it was hard when Sanji himself became more and more of a distraction by day.

“You mix any harder yer gonna fly away,” Zoro mused, a smug expression coming to his face when Sanji merely growled, elbowed him in the stomach, and kept going.

The swordsman just grinned, loving the look that came over Sanji’s face when he got frustrated, the stupid pout on his lips. The guy was a full thirty-one years old, and he still managed to look like a sulky teenager.

Of course, Zoro was a full thirty-one years old too (and older than Sanji by a few months, thank you very much), and he most certainly didn’t kiss teenagers.

He only kissed Sanji, and, well, that was one time several months ago. And he hadn’t meant to. But okay, he _had._ He just….hadn’t _known_ he’d been mentally planning on it until it happened.

He’d kissed Sanji because of every amazing thing he was for him and his daughter. He’d kissed him because he’d taken care of Tana, mended her life and her soul really, and shit, the cook had done the same for him.

Zoro had assumed that was it though. That the kiss had ruined fucking everything---ended their friendship---and that he’d fall back into that pit of depression and horrible, gripping loneliness. All because he couldn’t sit there and listen to the blond tell him he trusted him, despite every unpredictable thing in Zoro’s past. He couldn’t just sit and listen. His heart had to fucking flutter, and he had to lunge across that table, lips first.

He’d run afterwards, but the cook had brought him back inside his apartment. They’d drank a shit ton of alcohol, said some sappy fucking things about always being there for each other, nearly puked because of it, but that was all.

After that, things had gone back to normal. They hadn’t discussed the kiss since the night it happened, hadn’t told Tana. Maybe they should have, but Zoro didn’t want to push it, and he didn’t want his daughter to assume things until they were absolutely true.

He and Sanji were still friends, thank fuck, and Zoro was willing to accept that because Sanji was very straight, and Zoro was fucking _happy,_ happier than he’d been since Kuina’s death. There was no use trying to change a good thing. 

What he wasn’t expecting was for it to get more difficult, more and more difficult to ignore that feelings usually only reserved for Kuina were coming back full force.

It was almost as if she herself had pushed him towards Sanji, because there were so many things in the blond that reminded him of her, so many things he said that made Zoro wonder if Kuina had fucking come to him in a dream, told him to say them. Not to mention that Tana had run to _his_ restaurant of all places.

He didn’t believe in that fate or destiny crap. But damn…thinking of how much Kuina would approve of Sanji (not that he’d ever tell the blond that) sure helped matters along. This was no typical rebound. This was a full-blown second chance.

He knew Sanji wasn’t her, and he didn’t _want_ Sanji to be her. Sanji was Sanji….

And the day he realized just how badly he truly wanted him...and wasn’t _afraid_ to want him...was a profound one indeed.

* * *

Sanji had realized something a few evenings ago when Zoro and Tana had come over for their now-nightly dinner. He no longer got on their case about mooching. In fact, on days they took longer at the dojo and were late, he often called Zoro to complain, telling him to get his ass over there before the meal got cold.

But that was neither here nor there.

What Sanji had realized wasn’t so much a _sudden_ thing.

No, it was more the fact that he’d decided he wouldn’t stay in stupid _denial_ about things he’d been feeling ever since Zoro had kissed him. Or no, ever since Zoro and Tana had reconciled. Or no, the first time they’d sparred and he saw the way Zoro relaxed in his element, moved with such power and grace. Or no, that first time he’d smiled after---

Okay, he didn’t know _when_ it had started. But he knew that it had, and he was going to fucking suck it up and deal with it.

So he was straight. So was Zoro, right? They’d both only been with women.

He wasn’t into Zoro’s _body._ He knew the guy was attractive, sure. Anyone with eyes could see that, but it didn’t mean he wanted to drag him into the dojo’s storage closet and _fuck_ him or anything like that. And he thanked whatever gods of love were watching over him that Zoro hadn’t tried to do that to him, especially after that kiss.

He didn’t expect Zoro to. He still trusted him, with _anything…_

At least he was much better at hiding whatever the hell he was feeling than Zoro. He saw the looks Zoro gave him, after all.

In fact, he was keenly aware of the one Zoro was watching him with now, the intensity of his gaze practically boring through him, and he saw the way his eyes would drop to his lips on occasion when they spoke, how he’d forget how close he was standing or how long he’d been staring.

Pudding had never looked at him that strongly.

But Sanji’s realization had come before the mirror in his bathroom, after Zoro and Tana had arrived.

Zoro had brought the _exact_ ingredients he’d asked him to bring, remembered Sanji’s instructions perfectly for how to sauté beef, _and_ pulled Sanji’s hand away in time from a splash of burning water, telling the blond that he should be more careful because hands were precious in the kitchen. All with the most infuriating glint of challenge in his eye.

Sanji had to regroup, and he’d stood in front of that mirror, muttering to himself.

Except it was the fact that he _hadn’t_ muttered to himself.

 _“Goddammit, Kuina. Your stupid caveman of a husband is gonna make me fall for him,”_ he hissed, only to have his heart _immediately_ do a flip in his chest.

That was it. That was the tipping point. Simple as that.

He was invested in Zoro’s life, past, present, and future. He wanted to _be_ that future because he didn’t think anyone else was capable enough to keep the lout on the right track. He was attached to his daughter, felt a natural parental instinct when he was around her, the likes of which he’d _never_ felt before, never imagined he would feel with a kid that wasn’t his.

And here he was, consulting with Kuina as if she could help guide him to---to what?

He wasn’t gay, but the urge to connect with Zoro was strong, stronger than friendship.

Ultimately, his own reflection in the mirror hadn’t helped him much. He’d slapped water on his face, rolled up his sleeves, and strode back out there confidently to finish a damn good beef stir fry.

Only to be tense with the burden of his realization for the next several days, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

And oh, he tried to hide it, squirming a bit under the dopey way Zoro watched him and didn’t fucking help much, but the blond eventually muttered quietly, “Tana’s birthday’s coming up.”

Sanji flicked eyes across the room to the sitting area where the girl sat multitasking on homework and TV as usual.

“Thirteen’s kinda big. You’d better have something good planned,” he added.

Zoro looked at him curiously, especially because they’d already had this conversation a few days ago, but he humored the cook, leaning over and resting an elbow on the counter as he watched Sanji start to lay out the gooey dough on a baking tray.

“Thought sixteen was the big one,” Zoro replied, reaching out a creeping finger to poke at a particularly tempting glob of dough before Sanji managed to slap his hand away with a growl.

“Well, it is, but this is the entrance into _teendom,”_ Sanji justified. “It’s for sure gonna be a big deal in her mind.”

“Tana, is turning thirteen a big deal?” Zoro drawled a little louder so his daughter could hear, grinning when Sanji’s jaw dropped indignantly.

“Not really,” the girl answered, turning around on the couch to face them, resting an arm on the back. “I can’t even drive yet. And I’ve already seen PG-13 movies. Hell, I’ve already seen _R_ -rated movies. Nothin’ to be excited about.”

“Hmph,” Sanji huffed. “Well, I’ll give you something to be excited about, missy. And that’s the damn incredible meal I’m gonna cook for you. Better than anything I’ve made you yet, how’s that.”

Her eyes lit up at the little pet name he dropped, particularly when Zoro heard it too and met her eye with a mischievous wiggle of eyebrows. He made a big show of mouthing, across the room to her, the number of times Sanji had done such a thing that evening, illustrating by counting on his fingers.

She nodded with a grin, enjoying the secret message game they had going, especially when Sanji took notice right when Zoro was in the middle of silently imitating his earlier command of, “Homework, young lady,” complete with stern expression and a wagging finger.

 _‘Okay,’_ Tana mouthed in return, batting eyes and assuming a cherubic pose for a split second before father and daughter couldn’t help but burst out into laughter.

“Oi! What the hell are you two doing!” Sanji screeched, finally shoving the cookie tray into the oven with one hand and giving Zoro’s head a hard shove with the other.

Zoro just cackled though because, in reality, he fucking loved it. He loved how protective Sanji was over Tana. He loved the fact that he acted so parental towards her, whether he was aware of it or not. He’d _missed_ this, having someone to share his daughter with, having _help_ and extra support.

Kuina had never gone the pet name route, so seeing Sanji do it was something entirely new and entirely hilarious.

Sanji set the timer over the oven, gave one last peek through the oven window, then rinsed his hands off under the sink and stalked off across the room towards the back door, mumbling something about needing a cigarette. He grabbed his jacket off a hook on the wall and went outside.

“What’s his problem?” Tana asked, with leftover giggles.

“Dunno,” Zoro replied, crossing after him, ruffling his daughter’s hair as he passed her. “I’ll go find out.”

He went without his own jacket, despite the nip in the air, already wearing a hoodie. Cold didn’t bother him much anymore, not since his stint in Impel Down. Level Five hadn’t earned its “Freezing Hell” moniker for nothing.

Sanji stood out on the deck, a small light on next to the door, but other than that, he stood in darkness. Elbows resting on the railing as he stared out at the ocean, the flicker of his cigarette softly illuminated the blond’s face when he took a drag.

Zoro knew that face. That was Sanji’s troubled face, and it wasn’t a face he’d seen for some months, not since they’d first met and were forced to confront things from their past they absolutely hadn’t wanted to confront.

The swordsman really hoped nothing new had sprung up to haunt the blond.

He strode over to stand beside Sanji, mimicking his pose, watching the dark sea himself, the light of the moon reflecting on the water. This was part of why he loved coming to Sanji’s apartment, besides its inhabitant. There was something about the sea that drew him in, and this view Sanji had was something else.

He didn’t speak for the longest time, and Sanji was grateful for that. It was such a Zoro thing to do though, to stand there in complete silence, not even looking at him. And yet somehow coax Sanji into speaking his mind _with_ said silence.

It was almost like he felt he _had_ to speak to fill the void. Though it also helped that Zoro was perhaps the only person he knew that _really_ understood him.

Sanji blew out his next lungful of smoke with a sigh, watching that horizon before asking a rather unexpected question.

“What were you thinking when you kissed me, Zoro?” he breathed, not accusingly, but out of genuine curiosity. “What was running through your mind?”

He heard the sharp intake of breath from the man beside him, knew he’d caught Zoro off-guard. But he also knew Zoro would answer him, because the swordsman was done running from the truth.

It took him a minute, during which Sanji didn’t look at Zoro yet, but eventually, Zoro replied softly.

“I was thinkin’....about….how you said you trusted me an’....an’ that I trusted you and wanted you to be here,” he said. “For me an’ for Tana. I was thinkin’...how important you’d become an’ how….just...no one else would be good enough.”

Sanji swallowed back the lump in his throat, forcing himself to stay composed despite the fact that Zoro had just spoken _his_ own thoughts aloud.

Slowly, he looked over at Zoro, who was watching him, his face clear in the moonlight.

Zoro’s lips turned up ever so slightly, a little sheepish.

“I still think that stuff, y’know,” he admitted.

For a moment, Sanji forgot how to breathe, and he shook his head slightly.

“So you’re---are you---” he stuttered, but closed his eyes briefly and slowed himself down. “Are you….attracted to me, Zoro?”

Again, the way he said it wasn’t judgmental, merely curious, and a little investigative, as if Zoro’s answers were helping him work through something in his head, the swordsman thought.

It was just like the cook to be that damn analytical.

“What, you mean like your body?” Zoro asked, wrinkling his nose a little bit. It was kind of awkward to talk about. And it always had been with Kuina too. This just wasn’t his thing.

Sanji nodded almost shyly, so he sighed and shrugged.

“You’re hot, sure, but it’s not---your gangly legs or your dumb suits, your stupid, floppy hair that---shut up, don’t interrupt me,” he scolded when Sanji nearly cut him off to protest. “And it sure as hell isn’t your _damn swirly eyebrows._ I told you that night. It’s _you._ It’s just.... _you._ I dunno. S’just how it is. Why does there gotta be anything else?”

Fuck, as dumb as it was, as _Zoro_ as his response was, it made all sorts of sense. Sanji could admit this. And it made himself feel so much better about how he’d been feeling about Zoro.

But he wasn’t sure how to voice that, how to come out and say it without compromising his own sexuality, how he _knew_ himself to be and had been for his entire life.

“Is that what you’re freaking out over, cook?” Zoro’s voice shoved its way into his thoughts. “You think I wanna throw you over the kitchen counter and fuck you like some---?”

 _“Zoro!”_ Sanji yelped, a flush flooding his cheeks as if he’d _really_ been violated. The prude. “Fucking _hell,_ your daughter’s inside!”

“She can’t hear us, Curly. Chill out,” Zoro snickered, knowing she couldn’t even see them either, not with the blinds down.

Sanji rolled his eyes far too dramatically and let out an irritated huff. He glared at Zoro as he stubbed out his cigarette. Then he tossed it into an ashtray he’d set out on the small wrought-iron deck table to help train himself not to keep flicking the butts into the ocean.

Zoro was enjoying this far too much, and he knew it was because he’d already put himself out there. He’d been scared at first, but as soon as Sanji showed him he wasn’t going anywhere, the swordsman had easily relaxed, a little _too_ much sometimes, such as moments like this.

Still, Sanji had to wonder, because he found himself comparing himself to her more and more, even though they’d never met.

“Is this how it was with Kuina?” he asked Zoro quietly.

The smirk on the mosshead’s face became a bit less prominent, but he didn’t lose it completely as he might have at one point, a sign that he truly was healing.

Zoro nodded and answered, “Yeah,” eyes on Sanji the whole time. Then he shrugged. “But I don’t want you to be Kuina. I want you to be you. If you were just like her, I’d avoid you like the damn plague. ‘Less you forgot about Tashigi…”

Sanji couldn’t help but let out a snort despite himself, remembering just how skittish the police chief’s partner had made him. According to Zoro, she was far from Kuina in personality, but her looks were enough to freak him out to no end.

What Zoro had said though…

He didn’t _want_ Sanji to be Kuina. He wasn’t _expecting_ Sanji to live up to her legacy, and though this was something Sanji had always assumed and told himself, hearing Zoro say it straight to his face….

Fuck.

As if it wasn’t true though. The last thing he wanted Zoro to be was Pudding. He had loved Pudding at one point in his life, but to remake what they had, redo it. Never. What Zoro gave him was entirely different, and yes, _better,_ and it was what had a surge of excited tightening assaulting his chest.

And he surprised even himself when he took a deep breath and said, “C’mere, mosshead.”

Zoro quirked a brow at him in confusion, tilted his head and asked, “What…?”

But Sanji gestured to him more insistently, squeezing eyes shut briefly to prepare himself.

“Just come here before I fucking chicken out,” he said, gesturing….gesturing....nervously gesturing, and he let out another huffed breath. “Come on.”

Zoro got it a second later. He got what Sanji was implying, and his eyes widened, heart automatically picking up speed in his chest.

But he stepped closer obediently, slowly closing the distance between them until a few inches were all that separated their lips.

Fuck, Zoro hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to do this again until this very moment. Months of suppressing the urge had almost lapsed him back into some sense of content normalcy.

But no. He still very, _very_ much wanted this.

“I’m doing this,” Sanji was murmuring, as if to convince himself. The idiot. He never knew when to shut up.

Zoro resisted the frustrated sound that wanted to work its way from his throat. He had to be patient. He had to prove to the cook that there was nothing either of them should be afraid of anymore.

Sanji had taken him over so many hurdles, shown him he was capable of much more than he’d ever imagined. It was Zoro’s turn to now teach that to the cook.

“Then do it, Sanji,” he breathed, a challenge in his voice, but also a cheap tactic. He knew that whenever he used the blond’s actual name, it did strange things to the guy.

Zoro saw that tiny upturn of lips on Sanji’s face, the way it automatically flustered the man a little, and the swordsman smiled to himself triumphantly.

He got his reward when lips moved swiftly to capture his. The kiss was soft, hesitant on Sanji’s part, but Zoro didn’t rush it, let Sanji lead the way.

He hadn’t expected it to last more than a second, and indeed, Sanji pulled away briefly without doing much but providing a tingling pressure. But an exhale of conviction, and then his lips were back, and this time, his hand too, coming up to Zoro’s hair, and that was it.

Zoro didn’t even _compare_ it to a kiss from Kuina because the one forcing his way into his mind, heart, and soul now was _Sanji,_ and that was entirely special in its own unique way.

The second Zoro kissed back, Sanji forgot himself. His awareness of what he was doing went down the drain in favor of the realization that he’d _never_ felt this before. Not this insane warmth in his chest, nor the desire to strengthen the kiss, pull Zoro closer in a way he never could have with Pudding, translate all the energy they used when they sparred to something _else_ and---

Sanji’s mind quickly caught up to his instincts though, and he broke the kiss, a disbelieving sound leaving him as he backed up, dropping his hand from Zoro’s hair, bringing it to his own instead.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” he muttered, shaking his head a bit.

Zoro was grinning like a madman though, like he’d just conquered some huge challenge, and he sort of had, hadn’t he.

“Lips are lips,” Zoro replied teasingly. “How ‘bout you fucking get over yourself.”

There was no way he’d ever be this confident in himself had it not been for Kuina, and he was realizing, with relief, that he didn’t feel guilty. For a while, Zoro had wondered if he should be doing this. If he should even be entertaining the possibility of this in his head when Kuina still meant so fucking much to him and always would.

But the feeling he had in that moment….it was hard to explain….but he almost felt like he could hear her muttering, “About time,” in the background.

He fucking _hoped_ she was proud, especially when Sanji started sarcastically apologizing for being _so_ inconvenient, for not wanting to do this for the wrong reasons and wanting to make _sure_ he felt certain things and---Zoro stopped taking him seriously a few sentences into that spiel, something he’d been sure to let the cook know.

And when they finally made their way back inside, still bickering, it could have been about anything, and they didn’t speak of what had just occurred to Tana, who saw nothing even amiss with the situation.

Nothing _was_ amiss. Everything was incredible, and Zoro _felt_ incredible all the way back to their own apartment.

Why should he keep this to himself any longer? He had a feeling Tana wouldn’t be upset. He had a feeling she’d _approve,_ judging by how much she cared about the cook, and this would only add an extra layer of stability to their relationship.

If Sanji got mad at him, tough fucking luck. Besides, he was the one who always urged Zoro to be honest with his daughter.

So they’d barely made it a few feet into their apartment when Zoro told his twelve-year-old daughter, “Sanji and I made out on the back deck,” as proudly as a high school kid in a locker room after his first fumble under the bleachers.

She’d stared at him for a long second, shooting his own look of skepticism right back at him before she replied, “You’re lying,” much to his surprise.

“I am not!” he insisted, entirely offended his own daughter wouldn’t believe him.

Tana rose brows slowly, then shrugged, turning on her heel to head back towards her room.

“Fine. Kiss him again tomorrow then. In _front of me._ How ‘bout _that?”_ she challenged, shooting him one last look back over her shoulder before she rounded the corner, though she bit her lip in excitement the second she was out of sight.

“I will!” he promised, grumbling and tossing his jacket onto a chair.

And he kept his word on that promise the next day, catching Sanji entirely off-guard when he and Tana first showed up at his apartment.

Sanji had screeched and blushed like a fool, but Zoro hadn’t cared, especially when he saw that absolutely _thrilled_ look on his daughter’s face.

He was confident now. Confident the cook was going to come to his senses.

And when, a few months after that, Sanji had been the first to sit down and explain to Tana that he and her father were going to try dating, as insane as it probably was, absolutely _no one_ was surprised.


	5. Daughter

**_Now…_ **

* * *

Zoro couldn’t sleep because his _pillow_ refused to sleep, and it was starting to get damn annoying.

Sanji’s breathing just wouldn’t relax, and even though his fingers played gently with Zoro’s hair, it was more out of distraction than want to soothe him.

 _“Ugh,”_ Zoro eventually grumbled quietly, not moving his head from where it rested atop Sanji’s bare chest. _“Go to sleep already. I can hear you thinking.”_

“Shut up,” Sanji replied, digging nails into his shoulder briefly, before holding his overgrown moss ball closer. “What color should the theme be?”

“The theme….?” came Zoro’s muffled reply against his collarbone.

“You know. The wedding theme. Usually people decide on colors for their wedding party’s outfits and the invitations and---”

“Ugh, I don’t care,” Zoro mumbled, exhausted and exasperated. “Whatever you want. Just go to sleep.”

“Alright, alright,” Sanji conceded, and went quiet....

Only to pipe up about twenty seconds later.

“Okay, but the flowers---”

“Fucking _hell,_ cook! I’ll strangle you!”

And Zoro pushed himself up on the blond’s chest, digging elbows in harder than necessary before wrapping hands around Sanji’s neck to do just what he’d voiced.

But Sanji only grinned and lowered his voice teasingly, “Getting kinky on me? Huh, mosshead?”

Zoro made a disgusted noise though and pushed off him, flopping to the mattress beside him and dramatically throwing an arm over his face.

Sanji chuckled, sliding over to his sleepy fiancé. He slid a hand smoothly over Zoro’s chest and leaned in to kiss the corner of his lips.

“I can’t help that I’m excited, love,” he crooned, trying to appeal to Zoro this way. He didn’t want the idiot falling asleep irritated with him. “We’re getting _married.”_

Zoro kept his arm over his eyes, but even in the darkness, Sanji saw his lips turn up.

“Not until August,” he grunted, though it was clear he was happy about it. “Two months is plenty of time to plan shit.”

“Coming from the guy who took his girl to the fucking _courthouse,”_ Sanji teased.

“Hey! It was Kuina’s idea! Take it up with her!”

“Fine,” Sanji said, then looked up at the ceiling. “Kuina? You listening? I’m gonna make this oaf have a proper romantic wedding. Gonna pry some sappy vows out of him and everything. And maybe even make him wear a wedding dress---!”

“Like hell you are, freak!”

Despite how damn _exhausted_ he claimed he was, Zoro still found the energy to tackle Sanji amidst the blond’s loud laughter, throwing a leg over him and pinning him to the bed roughly.

Not long after the ruckus started up, however, there was a thump on the adjacent wall, behind which they knew Tana’s bed to be located.

 _“Tryin’ to sleep here!”_ came her faint voice through the somewhat thin walls.

Sanji quieted his snickers, brushing at Zoro’s jaw with a thumb when the swordsman rolled his eyes and flopped off Sanji to pout into the pillows again.

His daughter was eighteen, just graduated high school a few weeks ago, and dammit, he sometimes felt like _she_ acted like the parent, especially these days.

Nevermind that he was thirty-seven. They respected each other, but Tana certainly wasn’t afraid to let her dad have it, something she’d gotten from her mother. And probably Sanji too, considering she’d spent her entire teenage years with the foul-mouthed blond as a hugely important part of her life.

Sanji was glad Tana had taken that opportunity to scold them through the wall, because it afforded him an opening, while the girl was probably on Zoro’s mind. It afforded him the chance to ask Zoro a question, a question he’d been thinking about for a few years now, since he and Zoro’s relationship turned unbreakably serious.

The second he’d known he wanted to spend the rest of his life with this idiot, he’d also known just who else that included. Zoro and his daughter were a package deal, after all, and Sanji had come to love Tana just as fiercely as he would if she were his own flesh-and-blood child.

“Zoro,” he breathed, to which Zoro very nearly _whined._

 _“What._ This isn’t some giggly _sleepover,”_ the swordsman moaned into the pillow. “I love you. There, I didn’t forget, now _seriously,_ cook---”

“This _is_ serious, Zoro,” Sanji said quietly, the tone in his voice changing a little. He wasn’t necessarily _nervous_ to bring this up….but, okay, dammit, maybe he was a little.

Logically, he knew Zoro wouldn’t react badly, but this was still very, very _big,_ just as big as when they’d mutually decided to get married.

There hadn’t been much of a proposal, Sanji having yet to get a good, proper one out of the other man, but the first time Zoro had brought it up, Sanji’s heart had fucking fluttered, and the sex that night had easily been their best.

“Look at me,” Sanji urged his fiancé, sneaking a finger under Zoro’s chin, and there was something about the softness in his voice that actually had Zoro sighing and letting his head turn to look at the blond.

Sanji’s hand slid up to caress the side of Zoro’s jaw delicately, play with his earrings gently just as Kuina used to, and it was actually enough to have the swordsman relax entirely, shifting closer and wrapping an arm around Sanji’s waist in his contentment.

He blinked sleepily at the blond, thinking about how he’d marry him right now if he could. Screw the big ceremony.

But it meant a lot to Sanji, and the friend circle he’d walked into by default after meeting the cook was considerably bigger than it was the last time.

Maybe a fancy wedding wouldn’t be _so_ bad. It might be hilarious at the very least.

For a long moment, he didn’t think Sanji was going to say anything else, and his eyelids began to droop again.

But just before he could close them for good, Sanji murmured something that had him snap to attention immediately.

“Zoro…..may I have your permission to adopt Tana?”

His next inhale came sharply and stayed there in his lungs for far longer than normal before he let it out in a shuddering breath, a rush of warmth flooding his chest.

“You---” Zoro stuttered, feeling, for the first time in a while, a veritable blush coming to his cheeks. He tried again. “You want to---” But words still stalled.

Sanji didn’t seem worried by his lack of eloquence. The blond stayed calm, even smiling a little, as he met Zoro’s wide eyes in the darkness, tickled fingers through his hair, which had grown out a bit longer these days.

“I’ll have to ask her too. There’s the legal shit. She’s eighteen, technically an adult. But---” And he pressed himself closer with confidence, brought both hands to Zoro’s gaping jaw to drive home his words. “I _love_ your daughter, Zoro. I love her like she was my own kid. And I want her to know that a lifelong commitment to you is also a lifelong commitment to her.”

Zoro had stared at him in shock for a _long_ time, but Sanji waited patiently, knowing the mosshead just needed to work through things a little more slowly, thoughts having to get through a thick bed of grass before they actually led to action in situations like this.

So he stroked at his frozen neanderthal’s face, waited for Zoro to give him a reaction.

Of course, he sort of knew what that reaction was going to be, and, thus, he was ready, catching Zoro easily with his lips when the swordsman dove at him forcefully.

He’d kissed Sanji everywhere, his lips, his jaw, and when the blond felt a telling wetness transfer from Zoro’s cheek to his, he couldn’t help but smile broadly.

“Is that a yes?” he asked, to which Zoro let out a short laugh, and pulled back, swiping a hand over his eyes in a subtle attempt to wipe away the tears that had clearly welled there.

But he nodded, and as soon as he did, Sanji kissed those stray tears, teasing, “I make you cry~?”

“Shut up,” Zoro growled halfheartedly, through a smile that actually turned devious after a few moments. “I just---can’t believe she’s gonna have a _mother_ again…”

Sanji had shrieked, thrown Zoro’s stupid face into a pillow, and despite Zoro’s earlier complaints about wanting to sleep, the sex they’d had after that might have overtaken the top slot as their best. 

* * *

It was a few days later that Sanji was finally ready to execute part two of his proposal. Because yes, he was treating it as such. It was a symbol of commitment, to someone he cared for deeply, and unlike _Zoro,_ he wanted it to be sweet and perfect. He wanted Tana to know just how special she was.

Sanji knew her, knew she wasn’t into sappy shit, just like her dad, but dammit, he was going to pull this off, and the day he was ready to put his plan into motion, he had a pleasant swarm of butterflies in his stomach from the moment he’d woken up.

Zoro and Tana were heading to the dojo for the day, Zoro already swinging the car keys on a finger as he leaned back against the kitchen counter, bitching up a storm yet again as soon as Tana mentioned Kanai was going to be there in her class of twelve-year-olds that afternoon.

Sanji had tried to knock it into Zoro’s thick head that he should feel damn _good_ that Kaku, the guy who’d beaten Kuina out of her kendo scholarship so long ago, was now bringing _his_ son to _her_ daughter to learn. But Zoro insisted on disliking the kid, even though the little redhead was actually one of the most mature and polite students in the class.

The boy didn’t much tolerate flattery though, but that was most likely thanks to his mother. Kalifa was beautiful, but she didn’t like to hear it from anyone but her husband, Sanji had learned from his brief encounters with them.

Sanji distracted Zoro from his hissy fit with a goodbye kiss and a squeeze to his waist, promising to drop by later after he met with the graphic designer about All Blue’s menus. His restaurant wasn’t due to open for a few weeks yet, and construction was complete, but the preparations were still managing to keep him plenty busy.

Tana had leaned in to kiss Sanji’s cheek too before following her dad out the apartment door, grabbing the car keys from his hand before he could protest, but Sanji stopped her, catching her wrist gently and tugging her back.

“Hey, one sec,” he said as she turned around again to face him with a quirk of her brow. “You got plans tonight?”

She shook her head and replied, “Nah. Why?”

Zoro had paused in the doorway, confused at first, before realization slowly crept onto his features, brought a knowing smirk to his face and a host of stupid _feelings_ to his heart. He kept quiet though, letting Sanji do his thing.

“Mind if I take you out to eat?” the blond asked, drawing a skeptical look from her.

 _“You?_ Eat someone _else’s_ food---?” she started to say, but he shook his head with a chuckle.

“To All Blue,” he clarified. “Let’s test it out, see how the atmosphere is. I’ll make you anything you want. Consider it an extra belated graduation gift.”

Not that he didn’t cook whatever she liked always, but still, there was something about the way he was asking that had Tana wonder if he wanted to _talk._ There was a lot going on lately, a lot of big things happening in their lives. It was quite possible that he wanted to get her thoughts on it all.

“Is Dad invited?” she asked, smirking, to which Sanji replied, “Nope. All Blue’s first dinner guest has to be civilized.”

“Hey!” Zoro yelped behind Tana as she snickered.

“Kay. Sure,” she said, shrugging.

“Good,” Sanji replied. “Then we’ll go as soon as you get home.”

“Thank fuck, ‘cause I’ll be starving,” Tana shot back with a grin.

Then she’d pushed her still-grumbling father out the door, and the curiosity over Sanji’s mysterious invitation sat in the back of her mind all day.

* * *

Sanji had indeed stopped by the dojo for a quick spar with his fiancé that afternoon before having to head out again to “run some errands.”

And by the time Tana and her dad returned to the apartment that evening, Tana had several expectations. She expected whatever Sanji brought up with her to be sentimental, something about being proud of her, maybe telling her he wanted her to play some big special part in their wedding, which she’d _do_ but wouldn’t exactly be thrilled about if it involved giving a speech.

She’d asked her dad in the car if he knew what Sanji was up to, but Zoro had merely shrugged and made a vague series of non-verbal noises that somewhat resembled, “I dunno.” Unfortunately, with how clueless her dad could be, it was sometimes near impossible to discern if he really _did_ know anything.

What Tana hadn’t expected though was for them to walk in and find Sanji waiting and ready to go, dressed in one of his best blue suits no less, complete with a stylish belt chain and his silver watch that he only pulled out for special occasions.

Both Zoro and Tana stopped short not two steps in the door at the sight of the blond, Tana having to whack her dad in the chest after a minute so he’d wipe the lovestruck drool off his face.

“Uh,” she said, hoisting her gym bag up a little on her shoulder. “There a dress code here?”

She’d showered at the dojo, but only gotten back into a loose T-shirt and jeans.

Sanji looked up from fiddling with his cufflinks with a grin.

“No dress code. Wear whatever you want~” Sanji replied. “Throw your stuff in your room and let’s go.”

“Ooookay,” Tana answered slowly, shaking her head a bit to clear the initial shock of seeing Sanji dressed to the nines before heading out of the kitchen on the way to her bedroom.

Meanwhile, Sanji crossed over to Zoro, stopped in front of him and asked, “How do I look?”

When Zoro’s only reply was _another_ bunch of non-verbal sounds, Sanji rolled his eyes and reached up to pat Zoro’s cheek.

But shortly after, he snuck his hand around to the back of Zoro’s head, pulled him closer to kiss him, lips working slowly over his partner’s, in a tender way that worked to spell out all his love and devotion, everything he wanted to convey to Tana that night.

When he parted for air, he stayed close, nuzzling his nose into the swordsman’s, eyes still shut.

“Don’t get _too_ sappy on her, kay?” Zoro murmured against his lips, and Sanji had to give a quiet laugh.

“No promises,” he said, and though Zoro replied with a huff, the swordsman still leaned in to kiss him again, the two of them relishing in the pleasant sparks that had yet to fade even a little bit since they’d both finally accepted this ridiculous connection between them.

_“Ahem…”_

A loud clearing of a throat forced the two apart after who knew how long, Sanji letting out a soft chuckle over Zoro’s lips.

Arms still around Zoro’s shoulders where they’d settled during their small bout of passion, he turned to see Tana standing there, weight shifted to one foot and arms crossed over her chest.

She still wore the same outfit, still had her hair halfway up in a messy bun, but she’d changed her nose ring (the proud piercing she’d gotten at the mall soon after her eighteenth birthday) for a stud, maybe in an attempt to look more sophisticated.

It didn’t matter. Sanji wasn’t looking to take her out of her comfort zone by making her dress up. What mattered was that she’d be there with him.

“Ready?” he asked her, to which she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

“Think I should be asking _you_ that,” she pointed out, then headed over to the door, adding, “Have fun heating up leftovers, Dad~”

Though leftovers of Sanji’s food were never anything to complain about.

* * *

Of course, they still paled in comparison to his freshly-cooked meals, the likes of which Tana never got tired of, and the setting of their dinner that night sure was adding to his food’s appeal.

All Blue had an upscale waterfront location, similar to the Baratie, but, in keeping with Sanji’s vision, it incorporated the ocean as much as possible. From the floor-to-ceiling aquarium tanks inside, to the stunning outdoor deck that jutted out over the sea itself, crashing waves splashing up under the glass panels Sanji had insisted upon installing in the floor, it was a place of nonstop nautical encounter.

Tana could practically hear the Michelin stars coming its way.

Sanji had made her a fabulous seafood pasta, crème brûlée for dessert, which they’d eaten out on said deck, talking about their respective days, college, what Tana’s friends’ plans were after graduation, who was going to make sure Zoro wore a suit to his and Sanji’s wedding.

It had been relaxed and pleasant, and eventually, they’d sat back to watch the sunset over the water, Tana folding a leg up on her chair and turning to rest her arms and chin on the backrest.

Sanji took this moment to look at her, really take in how much she’d grown and changed over six years, from that lonely, miserable little girl he’d found punching angry holes in crates in the Baratie’s alley to the confident, well-adjusted young woman that sat across from him now.

Never in a million years could he have foreseen this to be their future.

Never in a million years did he ever expect that meeting her would be the catalyst for his life to change, for him to move on from the love he’d lost, only to find something better.

Never in a million years did he think he’d want to be her father as badly as he did now.

“Hey,” he said gently, and when Tana looked over at him, he reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a small, velvet-covered square box he’d been keeping there.

He slid it across the table to her with a soft smile.

Her eyes fell to it, then instantly widened because that thing sure as hell looked like a _ring_ box… 

“Uh…” she stammered, unable to form words for a couple seconds. “How am I explaining this to Dad…?”

“Right,” Sanji shot back sarcastically. “I’m proposing to someone half my age. Would you just open it?”

Tana scrunched her face up in confusion, but she reached out slowly to take the box, cracking it open and peering at its contents.

Nestled inside on white silk was a long, silver-chained necklace, on which hung a ring, also silver, the metal of the band twisting delicately around tiny, evenly-spaced sapphires embedded within.

 _“Whoa,”_ Tana breathed, not really sure what else to say because the piece was beautiful, and it looked rather valuable.

Another minute of admiring before she looked up at Sanji again.

“What is this…?” she asked.

He smiled, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the table and his chin in his palm, watching her fingers turn the ring around ever so carefully.

“It was my mother’s,” he said calmly, which only made Tana let out another noise of disbelief in response.

He nodded, continuing.

“Yeah. I held onto it after she died. Just...something that made me feel close to her.”

Tana understood. Her mom hadn’t worn jewelry, but she still knew the unsuspecting power of inanimate objects to carry little pieces of their past owners. It was why she loved fighting with Wado so much. It made her feel like her own mother was right there with her.

She brought her attention back to the beautiful ring again with greater appreciation, brushing fingers over it.

“It’s awesome,” she said truthfully after a minute, gaze shifting between saturated blues, from the ring’s stones to Sanji’s eyes.

The cook’s face lit up in another smile.

“Glad you like it,” he replied. “‘Cause it’s yours. I know it’s not really your style, but I want you to have it.”

Tana couldn’t help but jolt a bit in her seat, not expecting to hear that in the slightest, not after he’d said it had belonged to his _mom_ of all people.

“Wait---what?” she nearly yelped, staring at him like he was off his rocker. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Really. I’m sure,” Sanji repeated, and she saw him take a deep breath before he lowered his hand, as if preparing himself for what he was going to say next. “It’s something….I know she would’ve wanted to keep in the family.”

Tana’s brow furrowed, her mouth opening a bit as if to speak, but she ultimately kept silent, watching him with a look that seemed wary but was really anticipating what he was getting at.

Her heart picked up speed when Sanji reached across the table, took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s something I’d want my _daughter_ to have,” he said softly.

The breath shuddered out of her, and she felt almost frozen as she tried to make sense of what he was implying here.

“Your...daughter?” she stuttered, making him hold onto her hand tighter.

“Yeah,” he said. “Look, I know I’m not your mom. But….I’m marrying your dad. And it’s never _only_ been about him. My commitment to him extends to you. I want it to be official though.”

He lifted her hand then, pressed a kiss to her knuckles, stroking his thumb over her skin.

“I love you, Tana,” he implored. “I love you like my own daughter. And I want that. If you’re okay with it. I want to adopt you.”

She gaped at him, stunned, and the fact that she completely reminded him of her father in that moment, with that dumbstruck look, only served to make Sanji’s grin widen.

It took a minute, during which he waited patiently for her reply, especially when, slowly but surely, tears appeared in her eyes, and despite her best efforts to quickly wipe them away, they weren’t going anywhere.

Much like him actually, which she now knew to be absolutely true. Not that she’d believed otherwise, but hearing he wanted to formalize it, that he wanted to take complete responsibility for her for _life._

“I---” she stammered, scrubbing at eyes furiously and sniffing hard to no avail. All she could do was give a tearful laugh through a shrug and nod vigorously.

“I--I mean, _yeah,”_ was all Tana could finish with, and when Sanji had stood, rounded the table and gathered her into his arms, she’d choked out, _“I love you too,”_ and clung right back to him as tightly as she could manage.

Since her mother’s death, there had always been a hole. A hole in her heart that grew smaller with every passing day, but she’d still figured it would always be there. She’d learned to accept it.

In that moment, she forgot it existed completely.

* * *

They’d come back to the apartment, Tana with that silver chain and its brilliant ring dangling from her neck, to find Zoro passed out on the couch with the TV on mute, a couple cans of beer and his half-eaten bowl of dinner---er, popcorn rather---on the floor beside the couch, his hand almost comically drooping into it.

Tana crossed over to him without hesitation, lingering excitement clear on her face as she tapped at his cheek until he jolted awake, blinking up at her with confusion.

“Dad,” she said, grinning and wasting no time getting to her point. “You totally knew what he was up to.”

“Huh? What?” he garbled eloquently, wiping drool from his face and sitting up slowly, affording Sanji, who’d come into the room after, a wonderful view of his fiancé’s completely disheveled cactus head, spikes sticking up every which way.

“He knew,” Sanji answered for him, stepping up to the couch so he could give Zoro’s hair a ruffle, messing it up more just for fun. “And he cried too, so you don’t have to be so embarrassed~”

“Hey, and so did you!” Tana insisted, knowing for a fact there had been no dry eyes between the two of them that night. “Can we drop it?”

“Never!” Sanji shot back, a hand still atop the swordsman’s head, petting absently like he’d acquired some overgrown house cat. “I’ve been waiting a long time to be able to embarrass a kid of mine, and now I finally get to!”

“It’s not official yet!” Tana argued. “You keep being the cool guy who dates my dad, beats him up, and cooks us food until then!”

“What?! Is that all I was to you?!”

“Oh, you talkin’ about the adoption thing?” Zoro finally cut in, yawning and looking between them, prompting Tana to drop her head into a hand, Sanji knocking a fist over his dumb head.

 _“Yes,_ genius, what else?” Sanji replied through gritted teeth, trying hard to remind himself why he’d fallen in love with such an imbecile. “And we’re all gonna be one big, happy family that Kuina would be _proud of,_ got it, Zoro? Model parents only. No smelly drunkards allowed.”

“Oi! You let _her_ drink _wine_ with dinner all the damn time! And she’s fucking underage!” Zoro screeched, as if he was competing with his own daughter over who had the most rights in the household.

Tana looked over at Sanji with a smirk, wondering how he was going to talk his way out of that one.

 _“Model parents_ give their children freedom to _experiment_ in safe, controlled environments to reduce the possibility of them making bigger mistakes in worse situations,” Sanji justified, giving Zoro’s shoulder a shove for good measure.

“Bullshit! I drank underage in a _safe environment_ and that’s how I ended up with a kid at nineteen, Mr. _Model Parent!”_ the swordsman squawked in return, his daughter instantly pulling a face.

“Oh, _gross!_ Good _night!”_ Tana shrieked in horror, quickly turning on her heel and retreating to her room, leaving her fathers to continue their stupid argument that really….wasn’t so stupid in the end.

It was an argument _parents_ would have, albeit probably without physical violence, the two of them nearly breaking the coffee table when Zoro attempted to tackle Sanji onto it in an impromptu wrestling match.

That was probably a mistake.

But then again, mistakes weren’t always the end of the world, even big ones. Mistakes could lead to good things, so long as one learned to live with them.

And Zoro wouldn’t let his life be ruled by the fear of making such mistakes.

Not now, not ever again.


End file.
